


Blood

by GunpowderFlaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Lucifer’s bored, M/M, Sam’s on demon blood, Slow Burn, but only in the first chapter, oh there’s zero plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-05-14 05:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19266850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GunpowderFlaw/pseuds/GunpowderFlaw
Summary: Lucifer’s free, and he wanted Sam as his Vessel. He found Sam and kept him hooked on demon blood in hoping to get him to say yes. But the Devil was changing even though he refused to address that. Everything went south from then...





	1. Chapter 1

He had a dream.

There was only forest. Into the deepest region of the cedars, shadows formed by different shades of green spilt unto the earths. And they seemed to be breathing-the shadows, their edges trembling, distant thunders in concordance.

Somehow Sam knew it was a dream, an illusion created by his restless subconscious. He probably should wake up. John once told him that illusions could be fatal, for there were creatures out there lurking in the dark and feeding on people’s dreams. That was how Sam knew from a very young age that he could never be safe from the things they hunt, as that last piece of secure place in his own head was ripped away from him. And thus he could never be normal, no matter how hard he pretended everything to be. He remembered sneering inwardly at himself for the absurdity of his make-believe when Dean showed up several years back, requesting him on a hunt. Yet he still believed. It was a perfervid hope that he could somehow manage to get out, a constant subterfuge to run away from the brutality of reality.

Open his eyes should be the sensible thing to do. But the sweet indifference of the forest was just too endearing to let go. So he let himself be swallowed into nature’s monstrous belly with satisfaction, the smell of moist wood filling his senses entirely. It was like a spark that lit every doubt and every weariness within him on fire until they burned out, until there was nothing but ashes left and the sense of self cease to exist. Melting into the landscape was as simple as reaching out, arms extended all the way to infinity. He thought he should be afraid of the unknown, or to feel the grasp of his usual uncertainty; but the expected overwhelming apprehension was nowhere to be found.

After that, there was nothing. The bustle of civilization annihilated by nature, transmuted into an eternal quietness. And in there, Sam could finally rest.

Then he saw it, a creek, traversing through the flaggy terrain. Contemplating where it suddenly came from, he started trudging towards it. But it didn’t sound right, the waters seemed to be heavier than it should. But he couldn’t see clearly, like his mind was trying to decide what should be seen and what shouldn’t. Dreams were not like reality, for their details were added by the individual mind and not laid out for the taking. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. The creek was a different color now, not even the canopy of the trees could shadow that. Blood, he thought, the creek was flowing with blood. Then the blood started to vaporize, red clouds floated up so fast that within blinks his nose was flooded with them, brain seized in an unwanted but familiar delirium. 

Demon blood.

He began running, trying to get away from all that blood. Until there was quiet again, he stopped, chest heaving, cold sweat dripping down his torso. There was something sticky under his feet, so he looked down, only to find a string of bloody footprints, and there were red spots spattered everywhere on his shoes.

 

His eyes snapped open. The sheets felt clammy underneath, and he was not alone. There’s a person lying beside him, a vessel, more accurately.

“It was quite a beautiful place, Sam.” He’s talking about the dream. “I’ve always loved the forest. To feel the nature breathing around you, ground trembling, not a single trace of you filthy humans. The creek though, I gotta give it to you, Sammy, it was a brilliant idea.” The Devil’s calm eyes was boring into Sam’s. And after what felt like an eternity, his atonal voice shook Sam out of his unconscious fidgeting. “There are so many things worth bowing to, yet He only sees you.”

“You’d never bow to anything.” Sam pointed out quietly.

“I can bow to you.” The Angel smiled, then blinked, even though he had no need to do such a human thing, “If you let me in.”

“Not today. Not ever.” He didn’t believe himself. 

Sam knew his existence was slowly collapsing, ebbing away day by day.

*

Habit was a truly horrifying thing. Like Sirens in ancient Greek lores, dulcet songs luring sailors into the false comfort of oblivious death. The past month had made a lot of things that he couldn’t even think of a year ago normal, even when it came to conversing with the Devil. He wondered when had his life become like this, teetering between Apocalypse and his will for not giving in; and the shocking agreement he and Lucifer had come to reach at a certain, insane point. He winced a bit when he struggled to get up, a series of bruises on his upper thigh left by an archangel still hurt like he’d been hit. There was nothing gentle between them. But the harsh, mostly painful exchange of what could only be distantly referred to as sexual interaction was in some way, reassuring to both of them. Sam didn’t dare look too closely into that, and Lucifer simply didn’t care. 

Lucifer’s desire for making Sam his vessel had receded, even though he refused to acknowledge that. And Sam had no intention of bringing this up, as if vocalizing something would only undermine its integrity. Omitting was different from lying. Just like what Lucifer did to him.

Couple days ago he noticed that the regained freedom seemed somewhat overwhelming to the archangel, and keeping Sam fed up on demon blood and the occasional make-out session with too much teeth and minor(when there’s always an angel to heal you) bodily harm could only be explained as some kind of anchor for Lucifer. As for why he needed anything to ground him, as a celestial being who had been there since the beginning of the universe, was beyond Sam.

“You are not like them.” Lucifer’s voice was muddled, which meant he must have buried his face in the pillows again. This was ridiculous. The Devil liked pillows stuffed with duck feathers. It would make one hell of a joke if it wasn’t for the inconvenient circumstances.

“And what makes you say that?” 

Lucifer sat up. He seemed to be actually mulling this over. Seconds later his expression changed from his usual smug self-assurance to perplexity.

“Will you believe me if I say I don’t know?” His face settled with a playful smile, but Sam knew the angel was covering up his unwonted honesty.

“I don’t know either.” 

The silence followed wasn’t so uncomfortable. Sam stared at one faded coffee spot on the worn sheets, before he got out of bed. 

“You know I can heal you from the demon blood, right?” 

He froze. “Yeah.” He didn’t know. 

“Though that would take away all the fun.” Lucifer fell back, for someone who didn’t need to sleep he sure had a penchant for lying. “But...Do you want me to heal you?”

“I...” It should be easy, the word was already on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say it. Something demonic in him was reluctant to give up. He stood on their motel room’s cheap carpet, breathing through his nose. Stale wetness seeped out of their dim bathroom, making the room felt more like a coffin than a place of the living. Someone in the next room was watching TV, some stupid late-night show. He knew because Dean used to watch it, beer in hand and all serious-faced. There was a bubble of something brewing at the bottom of his stomach, growing and rising at an exponential rate. Guilt, he recognized. It hit him harder than he thought possible, his whole existence was questioned and then denied—he shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t be alive.

Lucifer was suddenly behind him. Deliberate breaths on the back of his neck. Sam shook his head to get away from the excessive intimacy, “I want you to bleed me dry.” He heard himself say.

“No need to punish yourself over something like this, Sam. The world isn’t ending, which means you didn’t say the capital ‘Y’, which means your track record is still on the cleaner side—not what I wanted though.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, okay.” Lucifer shrugged, walked to Sam’s side, and kissed him on the right cheek. Sam took a step back, futilely rubbing the spot on his face. 

“But really, do you want me to heal you?”

The clock ticked on the wall. 

“Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took soo long. I’ve been busy like a hot-bricked human. Nothing exciting happened tho, I just got my ass handed to me by real life as usual.

He didn’t know why they still stayed in those crappy motels. Lucifer seemed unbothered, if not a bit fascinated by their surroundings-the peeling walls, the staleness of everything, and some reminiscent late-night shows. Sam wondered whether it was because he lacked the conception of decent living, or it was him trying to understand the species he hated so much(which was incredible for someone who decided to destroy them all not so long ago). 

Despair dripped out of everything that enclosed them in, making every breath a test of their lungs’ functionality. Maybe this was what it felt like for those people dwelling in small towns, grew up and lived in the same place only a bit larger than a high school tennis court their whole life. Yet they knew what the outside world looked like from the small boxes in their houses called TV. They just simply couldn’t leave, anchored to the ground by some invisible chains. Like drowning.

“Don’t wanna take one last farewell bite?” Lucifer held up the demon’s arm, lips red from the sticky, crimson liquid. He was sitting on the floor, legs propping up where the demon’s pallid and flaccid arm rested. It was dark outside, probably midnight or early morning. Their dimly lit room gave the Devil a warm aura, the blood on his half-opened mouth seemed to be glistening with a kind of diaphanous brightness.

An impulse suddenly seized Sam, a desire, bubbling up and filling his empty shell of a body. Then he was moving, hunkering down, and leaning towards Lucifer until he could smell the faint taste of iron. Lucifer’s blue eyes were watching him intently, waiting for something to happen like a lion waiting for its prey. 

One more, he thought, just one more mistake. The world wouldn’t end. It couldn’t because ever since Lucifer gave up his omnipresent attempt at getting Sam to say yes, everyone seemed to be floating around without a purpose. And a world with no meaning was not a world worth destroying.

So he closed his eyes and sucked on the Devil’s lower lip. 

The demon blood’s effect never came. But Lucifer did. His tongue darted out, turning the one-sided contact to something akin to a kiss. A softer one, compared to what they shared before. Sam’s brain shut down the moment Lucifer started moving and all thoughts gave way to his primitive instinct. Out of the chaos in his head, the need to hold onto something rose from a restless sea of thoughts, like lightning during a midnight sea-storm, or a cynosure rising from the debris of an exploded star. So he kissed back, with ferocity and tenderness. It was a message, sending Lucifer feelings even unfathomable to Sam himself.

Lucifer’s fingers traced along his jawline, before pressing down and tilting Sam’s head so their lips could fit better together. It was just like what had been described in those contemporary novels that Sam had read about on his numerous trips to different libraries, it was said that when the initial spark of touch got snuffed out by the realness of the world, people would cross path with a sense of absurdity, like waking up from an over-detailed dream and trying to tell reality from the surreal realm. Now Sam could feel everything around them—the lapsing warmth radiated from that demon occupied body, the distant sound of a truck’s engine from the road, and the smell of the constant staleness that saturated every part of their room. He could almost hear the last string of blood flowing down onto the carpet like the creek in his dream. 

They separated, mouths only inch apart. 

“When they told me that you were mine, I didn’t think it could be any way other than a vessel.” Lucifer said. He sounded mischievous, but there was something more in his eyes.

“I’m not yours.” 

“Yeah, right.” Lucifer shrugged.

“Seriously.” He looked down at the dead demon and the blood that covered part of his pale skin. But he didn’t crave it anymore. Then realization hit him. “Lucifer, you...”

“That’s right, Sammy. You are free now.” 

“I...” All thoughts escaped him, and he didn’t really feel like it to thank the Devil. 

“I heard you.” Lucifer smirked, no matter what was on Sam’s mind he probably already knew. “It’s okay, you don’t need to say it. Consider your message delivered.”

“Lucifer.” He warned. A small part of him was silently considering that maybe Lucifer did care, but he would be stupid to ignore the fact that Lucifer was an Archangel who had lived longer than the entire history of humanity. And such naïve ideas needed to be locked away in a box and shoved down the core of the planet earth. This one thought was pronounced with Dean’s voice in his head. It was too much of a spontaneous reaction, unconsciously incorporating Dean in his life as if he was never absent, as if they had never gone separate ways.

“Alright, alright.” The devil held up his hands in a gesture of concession, “No breach of privacy.”

“Dude,” Sam huffed out a breath, “Just...This is crazy. I’m sort of living with Satan.” His eyebrows raised, incredulity clear on his face. 

“Sam, if someone told me a month ago that I would be stuck with you, willingly, I would laugh my allegedly nonexistent evil tears out just for the absurdity of it.”

He didn’t answer immediately; rather, he fixed his attention on the demon lying on their room’s floor: there was still plenty of blood oozing out of the cut on his arm. The liquid was forming a small bright pool of darkness under the faint light, yet Sam found no incentive in him to act. It was only blood, the concept nothing more than a clinical analysis in his head. The fact that Satan cured him of demon blood addiction without asking anything in return was still settling in, and Sam found himself waiting anxiously for the other shoe to finally drop.

He could feel Lucifer’s gaze on him, less intent, but centered all the same. Lucifer opened his mouth, as if having a smart comment on Sam’s taciturnity, but after a second he closed it, keeping whatever he had conjured up to himself.

“Why?” He had to ask, he had to question Lucifer’s motive. Because nothing ever came easy for him, there must be some ulterior reason because he deserved anything but the kindness from his former enemy. And because he still didn’t believe that the Devil was capable of an emotion so mundane.

“Is it really so hard to believe that I would do something good for once? Perhaps it’s like believing that I was once the Angel of music.” 

If anything, Sam was pulled out of his taxing thoughts by this revelation. “The Angel of music?” 

“Sure.” The Devil rolled his eyes, seemed to be disappointed by Sam’s obliviousness. “What can I say? Father used to love me.”

“So you can sing?” 

“Of course, but don’t expect me to sing something like Stairway to Heaven.” He teased, “But really, you guys do have the dullest imagination. You know, it doesn’t have to be vocal to be called music.”

A soothing silence flooded into the space between them, like a kind of mutual understanding that passed on without words. Lucifer didn’t push for Sam’s reactions, and Sam wasn’t so eager to break the still air. 

“Sounds resonate differently within the confines of a body.” After a while, Lucifer said. He was looking down at his hands, as if by doing so he could uncover the ultimate cause for the restraints on his power.

“What was it like?” Sam stood, walked himself over to the bed and settled in the tangled sheets. “I mean, being able to...sing. In heaven?”

“It was...” Lucifer trailed off for several moments, probably sifting through different terms to form a better description, “It was...liberating.”

The sound of a phone ringing was uncharacteristically loud in their little space of nostalgia and sentiment. Sam flinched, leaned backwards to reach his obdurately buzzing phone, flipped it open without checking, and put it to his ear. “Yeah?” 

“Sammy?” The voice was all too familiar, “We need to talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! Real life sucks :-/

Dean still looked the same. Blue jeans, black T shirt, plaid flannel shirt unbuttoned, and an army green jacket. But his usual expressions shifted a little as before, the stern look he gave when he talked about a case took longer to get replaced by teasing. And his brows furrowed whenever he stole glances at Lucifer, who was reclining in his seat and playing with his fingers, looking like not caring a thing in the world. 

There was a tinkle of unease started climbing up from the bottom of his neck, like a current, prickling and making the end of his hair stand. For a moment he recalled the sensation of Lucifer’s lips on his neck, biting down and lapping at the bleeding mark, it was the same kind of contact that lured him into that wordless agreement he had with Satan. It was one thing to deceive himself, it was another when his brother’s disgruntled presence compelled everything into a realm of transparency. Sam turned in time to see the Archangel’s triumphant smile, his lips curled, and gave the Winchesters one of his obnoxious wink. In his discomfiture, Sam mouthed a silent curse toward the origin of that expression.

“I’m just gonna ignore your little,” Dean pointed at Lucifer, then nodded to Sam, “whatever it is between you two.” 

“It’s not—” 

“Not what?” Dean looked skeptical, “I didn’t say ‘what’, alright? Since you clearly have something in mind, you better share that with the class, Sam.” 

“Seems Dean here doesn’t know about it, huh? So what do you say Sammy? Should we tell him?”

“Tell me what?” Dean took the bait as fast as vampires would jump on an unguarded blood-bank.

“Nothing.” He blurted, “Dean, it’s really nothing, there wasn’t anything apocalypse-related happened.” 

“Fine. If you say so.” From his tone Sam knew Dean was still angry, angry at his early departure and his blasphemous proximity to the Devil. Tiredness seeped out of the older Winchester’s words like an overflowing cup, and under the water there was something more, some emotion that made Sam recoil every time he tried to probe. His brother seemed rather disinclined to talk, for what, Sam didn’t dare to scrutinize. It was better left under the veil of that ostensible weariness. 

Normally Dean would squeeze the truth out of him one way or another, but this time he just kept silent, requesting knowledge only if he needed to. It hurt to see someone once so close to him had become so incredibly careful around him, like there was an invisible wall between them and one wrong move would shatter the thick concrete and someone would get hurt from the spatter. Sam hated it. Because he was still the same person, because he wouldn’t change just for the closeness of the Devil.

“Okay.” Sam scratched his nose, “So what’s up?”

“Vampires.” 

“How bad?” Dean wouldn’t come if it wasn’t something he could not take care of on his own.

“Apocalypse kind of bad.” He raised a blaming eyebrow at Lucifer, who had now spread himself onto Sam’s side of the bed.

“Lucifer.” He let out an irritating sigh, “Can you settle down just for one minute?”

“I don’t like to have you paying attention to Dean,” As if emphasizing his word, the Devil pointed a finger at his brother, “obviously he’s kind of douche-y.”

“I’m kinda douche-y? So you are what, the good guy now?” Dean sounded relatively calm, but his face belied his anger and contempt, “Why are you still sticking around anyway?”

“Like I said, I don’t like you being the central of focus.” The Devil took a breath, the gesture more of a forceful rise and fall of the chest than a genuine mundane move, “And somebody has to keep an eye on the little brother.” 

“God damn it Sam, you deal with this kind of shit everyday?”

He shrugged, feeling the need to defend himself in front of the current audience, but refrained from doing so because it would be the same as defending Lucifer, who now seemed to be the hugest pain in Dean’s ass. 

There was a sound of water flowing out of a faucet in the adjacent room, the erratic churning voice of droplets on cheap ceramic indicated movement that blocked the predestined trajectory of the liquid.

“Dean.” He said, “So what’s with the Vampires?”

“Seems they are rallying up the forces, they are...” Dean took a breath, “They are turning humans. It looks like they are really eager to win the soccer game. Large numbers of missing people, no bodies.”

“But why are they doing this?” His voice sounded hollow in the unconventionally small motel room, “It would attract hell of the attention.”

“That’s what we are going to find out. Pack you stuff Sammy, we are hitting the road.”

“Wait, wait.” The presence of an Archangel felt tangible, Sam could smell the electricity in the air and could hear a low, constant whisper in Enochian at the back of his skull. And Dean was oblivious of all of these. Sam wondered what it must be like to sense nothing of the divine presence, to block out the sentiment that came with some occult emotions between the lines of an angelic language. It must be good, he decided. Because it was what normal people would feel. He longed for normalcy. Yet normal people desired particularity. He turned, and Lucifer smiled at him.

“What?” Dean snorted, “Don’t tell me that you can’t leave each other now.” 

“Well, we can, but...” He ran a hand through his hair, lowered his voice as if by simply doing so Lucifer could be excluded from this conversation, but in fact the Devil was never absent, “We need to keep an eye on him.” Sam whispered.

“You do realize that the only problem we’re gonna have is that if he’s got to you, which would be more likely if you two are playing conjoined twins.” Dean was eyeing him with suspicion, “Perhaps you should let someone else worry about your Satanic problem.”

“Umm, I think it’s better that he comes with us so that he won’t be able to go out doing some shady business.” Sam hated arguing with Dean over someone like Lucifer. There was something - a certain trait that could only be inadequately depicted as divine existence - about the Devil that was already pulling him away from his older brother. Sam couldn’t come up with any explanation, the pull was like gravity, a force so invisible yet so powerful that initiated the collision of two stars. The beginning of the universe. A light brighter than all the stars combined. A sight so full of splendor. 

A figure alleged to be the source of all evil. And he couldn’t look away.

Dean could never know any of this, or it would be the last straw that shattered the bond between them. Sam didn’t want them to be the Michael and Lucifer of their time. Unlike Lucifer, he maintained no hatred, and he longed for a kind of quixotic salvation that Lucifer repulsed with enthusiasm. Although deep down he knew salvation was just a lie that humans told themselves in order to subsist, and that the expectation for some kind of divine reward was another illusory purpose that people generated to create a meaning for their worthless existence, Sam still believed, despite everything that happened, he still hoped. He didn’t know if Lucifer felt the same. 

Do you miss it? Your time in heaven?

He wasn’t sure if Lucifer could hear him, because not all angels would listen to the prayers that stuffed in the margins of their plane. Until the tug of the Archangel’s presence grew stronger, and he could sense a humming voice inside his skull, just beneath the bones. It wasn’t an affirmative one, but it wasn’t negative, either. Just a persistent nostalgia ringing and vibrating, slowly and rhythmically. He wondered if Lucifer was singing out his answer.

“Promise I’ll behave.” Lucifer said.

“Bullshit.” Dean turned to face Lucifer’s vessel, glared at the scruffy blonde man. 

“How can I leave my true vessel Sammy here?” The Devil flipped his tongue, “And you do need extra help with the vamps, am I right? You said it was bad.”

“Dean, it’ll be fine as long as I don’t say the word.” Sam tried to sound in control, but the words came out like a plea. 

“Hell, Sam.” Dean shook his head, paused and then grabbed his bag. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

The sound of water running in the next room had long stopped, leaving a terribly quiet space of vacuum around them. Sam went to pack his things, and on his way to the bed(that he shared with Lucifer) he heard Dean saying, “Satan gets the back seat.”


End file.
